Winston Wächter Fine Art (Seattle) is pleased to present Southern Spirituals, our seventh solo exhibition with painter Betsy Eby. Please join us for the opening reception with the artist on Tuesday, March 3, from 6-8 pm.

Painter Betsy Eby is a Northwest native, shaped by intrinsic beauty of the area. Her childhood memories are filled with the Pacific coast, country forests, buttercup fields and the silvery bark of birch thickets. Nature, wildlife and the rhythm of the area permeate her work. For years she has used the sculptablilty of encaustic to infuse her paintings with the music and essence of the place.

Two years ago Eby moved south. Her move to Georgia brought a new perspective and new elements to absorb. In Southern Spirituals, Eby embraces her new home and pushes her palette to convey the warmth of the South. There is something familiar in her blues and peaches, something comforting. Eby allows the colors to tell the story, while maintaining her signature fluttering strokes.

As with all of her paintings, Eby provides music and a dance, allowing her delicate layers of wax and pigment to pull us deeper into their space. Her unique process of building and melting her medium creates thin veils of color, giving the feeling they could easily envelop you. There is a softness and a presence to her work, creating compositions that are simultaneously serene and dynamic. With each painting, Eby shares a piece of herself.

Eby’s paintings have been exhibited widely across the United States and are held in the collections of the Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA, the Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA, the Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, and several United States Embassies around the world.

Eby will be available to discuss her work at the opening reception on March 3, 2015, from 6-8 PM. If you have any questions or requests for additional information please contact Jessica Shea at gallery@winstonwachter.com or 206.652.5855.

Winston Wächter Fine Art (Seattle) is pleased to present Executing Merit, our second solo exhibition with sculptor Dirk Staschke. Please join us for the opening reception with the artist on Tuesday, March 3, from 6-8 pm.

Northwest ceramicist Dirk Staschke likes to blur boundaries. His work teeters between a wink and a smile and serious contemplation about the value of art. His latest body of work, Executing Merit, takes pleasure in forcing us to look behind the curtain, at the less attractive process of creating beautiful sculptures. At first glance his works are refined homages to traditional still-life paintings, complete with ornate frames. As you move around, you get full view of the work and the process involved in creating them. Unfinished clay bunches and bulges together to support the carefully detailed fronts. Staschke asks us to consider what part medium plays in the value placed on a work of art, and if knowing the process to create it, adds or diminishes to that value. Such weighty questions might feel somber, but Staschke’s playfulness and sense of humor make the task pleasurable.

Staschke earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from The University of Montevallo, Alabama and his Master of Fine Arts Degree from Alfred University, in New York. His work has been shown internationally and is included in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX; Icheon Museum, World Ceramic Center, Gwango-dong, South Korea.

Staschke will be available to discuss his work at the opening reception on March 3, 2015, from 6-8 PM. If you have any questions or requests for additional information please contact Jessica Shea at Jessica@winstonwachter.com or 206.652.5855.